Spec editing to be outsourced?

[DHLawrence]

I already posted this on the Waterloo Region forum since it also affects The Record, but forgot to copy it here:

Toronto Star, Waterloo Region Record and Hamilton Spectator union denounces plan for largest outsourcing in Canadian newspaper history
TORONTO - Canada's largest newspaper has told its employees that it is in negotiations to contract out up to 100 union editing jobs, almost a third of its newsroom. The explosive news was contained in a company announcement on November 3, 2009, on the paper's 117th birthday, of a buyout offer to all employees.

A further 60 jobs in the newspaper's pre-press area, including ad building and imaging technicians, are targeted for contracting out, the newspaper said. The paper has previously contracted out circulation jobs to India and classified call centre jobs to Buffalo. Torstar-owned dailies in Hamilton and Kitchener earlier announced plans to contract out ad building jobs to India.

"It's bad enough that the Star is turning its back on its own Atkinson principles to shed loyal employees," said Star union head Maureen Dawson. "Star readers will be shocked to hear that core aspects of its daily journalism, that vital role in our society, are now to be farmed out, likely to foreign interests.

"Journalism is a collaborative effort, the product of a team of reporters, photographers and editors working in concert to produce the kind of activist agenda that has served Star readers and our community so well for so long," continued Dawson. "To remove a critical element of that work is to shortchange everyone who depends on it."

Dawson is Star unit chair of the Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild, a local of the Communications, Energy and Paperworks Union of Canada (CEP).

Noting the acute concern of Premier Dalton McGuinty, economists and others for the loss of creative knowledge-based jobs from Canada, Dawson called on Star management to reverse its decision and put its actions where its editorial voice is.

"We'll be proposing alternatives to this misguided plan, and we call on all who love and depend on the Star to urge its management and directors to do what's right, live up to its own Atkinson principles and protect these vital Canadian jobs," said Dawson.

"This isn't outsourcing, this is another example of one of our big media companies abandoning good-paying Canadian jobs," said Peter Murdoch, CEP's national vice-president (media). "The national union will be supporting every effort to protect these good jobs." The Star was founded Nov. 3, 1892.

It looks like it's just ad building right now, but if they'll outsource The Star's editing, the others may follow suit.

[hamiltonguy]

Not sure HOW you can outsource the editing...

[bornagainbiking]

First it was Bell and many followed moving overseas for afterhours calls. I have severed almost all ties with Bell and if this is true I will be cancelling my subcription to th Spec.
I hope that a local small town newspaper starts up and I will subscribe to it expecailly if it is a morning delivery.
We need jobs and sorry to say people might have to work shifts. (9-5) is a good go but we may have to go round the clock for call centres and support access.

[adam]

Here is an article from 2002 entitled "Canada's Media Monopoly"
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1106

On the other side of things, there already are small independent newspapers in Hamilton that need our support: HMagazine, The Bay Observer. Anyone know of any others?

[sofasurfer]

Originally Posted by hamiltonguy

Not sure HOW you can outsource the editing...

...oh, you can. It'll just be an utter dog's dinner.

I can see a rationale (no matter how misplaced) for outsourcing certain types of work - but can't help but recall how in the UK, many companies that went down this path in recent years have regretted it and brought ops back onshore.

(good example - the NatWest bank did this, made it a key messaging pillar of their marketing campaign and enjoyed considerable success in both pr/marketing and regaining customers)